German wine classification

Nearly all of Germany's vineyards are delineated and registered as one of approximately 2,600 Einzellagen ('individual sites'), and the produce from any vineyard can be used to make German wine at any quality level, as long as the must weight of the grapes reaches the designated minimum level.

Table wine includes the designations Deutscher Wein (previously Tafelwein) and Landwein.

[8] Unlike the supposed equivalents of "Vin de Table" / "Vino da Tavola" and "Indicazione Geografica Tipica" / "Vin de Pays", production levels are not high, and these wines are typically exported to the United States.

There are also a number of specialty and regional wines, considered as special version of some quality category.

There are seven Deutscher Wein regions: Rhein-Mosel, Bayern, Neckar, Oberrhein, Albrechtsburg, Stargarder Land and Niederlausitz.

Deutscher Wein must be 100% German in origin, or specifically state on the label where grapes were sourced from within the European Union.

They are of the same size as a typical Einzellage and could be thought of as Einzellagen which were so famous that they were excused from displaying the village name.

Jon Bonné describes German wine labels as a "thicket of exotic words and abbreviations" that require "the vinous equivalent of Cliff notes to parse.

German wine domaines/"châteaux" are often called "Kloster", "Schloss", "Burg", "Domaine" or "Weingut" followed by some other name.

The two main reasons for criticism are that the official classification does not differentiate between better and lesser vineyards and that the quality levels are less appropriate to high-quality dry wines.